


so that we might have roses

by amells (aeviternal)



Series: a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Canon Dialogue, Deep Roads (Dragon Age), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Mentions of Mage Abuse and Oppression, Pre-Relationship, Romantic Gestures, Slow Burn, anyway we're getting there lads, only like. a little bit near the end ?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-21 17:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18145163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeviternal/pseuds/amells
Summary: Cedany knows the Deep Roads aren’t supposed to be fun, right? She’s not anidiot.She understands that, objectively, they're supposed to fucking suck. That doesn’t make them any easier to live in, though.Luckily for her, she has Alistair. Something - look, don't ask her what - about that makes things all the better.





	so that we might have roses

**Author's Note:**

> i have literally actually three 7k+ one shots for these bastards in my drafts but this is the only one that was even close to being finished so have at it

You’d think that living in a Circle tower would give a person enough things to loathe. That the stone and the stares would get tiring over time; that eventually, the hatred would rise open-mawed to consume everything in sight, to overturn furniture and drop its shadow over the walls. To gulp down the heavy moth-bitten drapes at the windows, to set aflame the tapestries of Andraste lining the walls as their subject herself had been, to pry up floorboards and shatter bedframes, tear pages from books and crack glass. That within such a place is all the irritation one needs.

And you’d be right for thinking that, to an extent. If she never has to see another templar or shred of ghastly orange robes again, it’ll be too soon. But still. For one such as Cedany Amell, one who has bucked against constraints from the very moment of their binding, you may rest assured in knowing that there’s never going to be a limit to things she can complain about.

Thus, there are many things in this world – this _outside_ that she’s dreamed of for as long as she can remember – that she’s found she doesn’t like.

Stinging nettles. Bears. Bugs. Templars, though that's hardly a new one. Black pudding is a curse on every living creature likely dreamt up by a demon or darkspawn at some point in history, and haggis revolts and confuses her in equal measure. She learned quickly just how much of a pain in the backside a small band of bandits can be, even if they have nothing on darkspawn, or corpses, or basically everything that they ever come across in their travels. Rashvine makes her feel sick and dizzy in a way that reminds her vaguely of a templar’s smite, and she’s discovered a new breed of hatred from months of sleeping fitfully with tree roots digging into her spine.

It turns out that, on top of all those things, something else that she doesn’t like is Orzammar. Intensely so, really. The air’s blistering hot from the lava that bubbles up from seemingly everywhere (which, _what is up with that_ , by the way?), there’s not a single sliver of sky to be seen, and no one wants to pull their fucking heads out of their arseholes long enough to do something about the _wee_ matter of the Maker-damned _Blight_ that she’s here to stop. Rumours spread with that pernicious promise she recognises from the Circle, only these are a lot more outlandish than the whispers from her old days about who’s shagging who in which storeroom, or which apprentice the enchanters are betting won’t walk away from their Harrowing. Politics rule everything, here, and she really did find herself growing sick of that sort of thing by the time that she was thirteen, thank you very much, so she has as much interest in the goings-on of the Assembly as a shriek does in a pork bloody pie. Make a fucking _nug_ King of Orzammar, for all that she cares, so long as that nug promises them the aid they’re supposed to be getting.

Now, _nugs_ she doesn’t hate. She doesn’t coo over them as Leliana does, and she’d certainly kick one out of bed if such an admittedly-fucked up opportunity presented itself, but they’re not as verminous or annoying as everyone else seems to think. In the right light, they’re almost cute; perhaps their skin is a bit vile, and yes, their little squeals get on her nerves, but still. They have twitchy noses. Nothing with a twitchy nose could be truly worth _hating._

Not that they have anything on a mabari, of course – particularly not _her_ mabari – but then, nothing does, if she’s being honest, which she sometimes is.

What’s important is that they’re a distraction, see? Something to take her mind off of everything that’s going on; off of Bhelen and Harrowmont and the throne she _really very much could not give two shits about if she tried,_ off the sky and its distinct absence, off the stone. The stone. The stone is fucking _everywhere,_ isn’t it?

Anyway. Distractions. Distractions are incredible. Her favourite, she’s quickly found, takes mortal form in Thedas as the criers of Orzammar, by the Maker’s bloody mercy. Admittedly, some of the things they say leave her a bit lost, but for the most part they’re good for a laugh. They’ve developed a habit of throwing their voices whenever her and the others pass, following their steps with hungry, furious eyes, like dogs begging for meat at their master’s heels. She quite likes that, actually, in the way that straightens her spine and curls her lip and tilts her chin, that way for which she was always punished before Duncan came along. (If Irving could see her now, he would cluck his tongue and shake his head, but he can’t so he won’t, and therefore why should she _give_ a shit?) She likes how nonsensical and ridiculous their news gets almost more than she likes how they look at her – so much so that her and the others begin to make a game out of it.

She maintains that she was the one who started it, no matter what Alistair says. They’d been underground for a day, perhaps more – though who can bloody tell, with the sky sealed off far, far above their heads as it is? – and, while on their way to the Chamber of the Assembly, heard a rather unconvincing besmirchment of Bhelen’s character on the basis of his being a _bad man._ Which, really. As an insult, it’s rather uninspired. Cedany could do better in her _sleep._

Fuck that, Cedany could do better in her _grave._

Snorting and nudging Alistair’s ribs with her elbow, she had leaned forward and whispered-yelled, “and Harrowmont is a very naughty little boy who must go to his _room._ ”

Alistair guffawed and a passing dwarf turned to stare. “Well, didn’t you hear? Bhelen’s not even a dwarf. He’s three nugs stacked on top of each other in some very shiny armour.”

“Ah, but I can do you one better, my friends,” Zevran swept in, lips twitching and voice low. “They say that Lord Harrowmont shits lyrium. Day-in-day out. An endless supply.”

Alistair laughed, even as Cedany slapped Zevran’s shoulder. “Fuck off, I _drink_ lyrium!”

And then Zevran had smirked and crossed his arms. “Then perhaps you might want to reconsider, my pretty friend.”

“You’re an arsehole.” She thought for a moment, sucking her lower lip into her mouth and giving it a chew. “Bhelen’s been secretly having an affair with a darkspawn, and that’s why he isn’t helping us.”

“How scandalous. How has he been smuggling in this Blighted lover of his, pray tell?”

“Why, through the backdoor, of course.” She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, and Alistair just about choked on his own tongue.

Zevran snorted softly. “That was almost inspired, my dear.”

“ _Almost?_ You impugn my honour so? For _shame,_ Zev.”

“Alright, alright.” Alistair’s cheeks were flushed with laughter, the red rising under his nut brown skin in a way that someone – anyone, really, anyone at all, but certainly not Cedany – might call _becoming_. “Harrowmont’s mother’s an ogre.”

“Oh yeah? Bhelen once _ate_ an ogre.”

“Ooh, maybe it was the same one. Maybe _that’s_ what this whole feud is really about.”

On and on it went, until they’d insulted both in probably half-a-hundred ways that would call for their heads if anyone heard them, and quite a few more that would require worse. And it was wonderful. Her belly ached with the force of her laughter, and her cheeks were sore, eyes streaming as she half-leaned on Alistair’s shoulder and tried not to trip over her own feet with her mirth. For a moment, things were bright and glorious and _joyful,_ and it was— it was _so wonderful._

But even with that, with giggles bubbling in her belly and drama unfurling on her tongue, steps light as though she weren’t a Warden and this weren’t a Blight and the world weren’t falling apart around her, her friends splayed around her in a halo, she _really doesn’t like_ Orzammar.

And if she doesn’t like Orzammar then she _absolutely fucking loathes_ the Deep Roads, loathes them down to her very bones, to that soul the templars are always saying doesn’t exist. Orzammar might have been stale and hot and stifling, but it was light enough not to have her tumbling back into memories of raging behind the Tower’s walls, and there were so many people around that it was easy to get lost in the noise. A marketplace sounds like a marketplace, she’s learned, no matter where in – or _under_ – Ferelden you are. The Commons were always alive with ringing voices, with haggling merchants and short-tempered buyers, and usually there was someone willing to talk to her, as all people generally are when she sets her mind to it. In Orzammar, you couldn’t take two steps without half-falling over a dwarf, and there was often something to keep her hands busy, keep her head away from _stone_ and _walls_ and _no sky, no sky, no sky._

It’s not exactly the same in the Deep Roads. In fact, it’s pretty much the exact opposite in the Deep Roads. There, any noise or stumbling isn’t any good – it turns out that it’s actually very, very bad.

She learns this upon tumbling into a web-filled nest and screaming herself _hoarse_ once a spider drops down on her, big enough to fill one of the storage closets back in Kinloch and very, _very_ hairy. And then there’s just _so fucking many of them,_ all with far too many legs and _even more_ eyes and a twitchiness about them that makes her skin crawl, and they move so fucking _quickly,_ skittering and scurrying across the ground like monsters from a fairytale, and she just— look. Look. She _really doesn’t appreciate that shit._

She knocks Alistair on his arse with a fireball in her efforts to wipe them out _as soon as she fucking can,_ and though he scowls at her for it, it gets the job done. Satisfaction turns in her like the moon, bright and growing fuller with each passing minute, until a grin is carving across her mouth, something confident and proud and maybe a _bit_ arrogant building between her teeth, and _then—_

Darkspawn. Fucking everywhere. _Darkspawn._ You know, because things weren’t shitty enough as-is.

After they’ve wiped the floor with the Blighted bastards, they keep quiet. That doesn’t stop them from _hearing_ things, though. Scuttling things, shrieking things, screaming things. Even the silence seems to breathe.

She hates it. She hates it so fucking much she’s almost _sick_ with it. But she’ll live with it, fine, just as long as it means when they go back to the surface and the _sky,_ they do it with an army behind them.

As it stands, they don’t have an army behind them yet. They don’t have _anything_ behind them, not unless you count the various half-incinerated corpses of giant spiders or darkspawn they leave in their wake, which, funnily enough, Cedany doesn’t. All they have is themselves; a talented and truly _divine_ mage who really deserves better than to waste away in the motherfucking _Deep Roads;_ a beautiful and precious and _strong_ little mabari that’s really not so little when it comes down to it; a mouthy elven assassin with more grace in his little finger than most people have in their entire bodies; an almost-sort-of-not-really templar (she has to get some more clarification on that, really) who’s also an almost-sort-of-not-really prince; and— well. And a drunken dwarf.

Oghren, it turns out, is a grouchy sort. Which is sort of a massive pain in the backside, if she’s honest, because she hardly needs more of those around her, but fine. She’s bothered Sten into conversation in the past, and he’s the surliest person she’s ever come across – which is saying something, really, because old Enchanter Sweeney could be the most taciturn and irritating man in the _entire fucking world_ when he wanted to be, and he often wanted to be.

At any rate, she can provoke a drunken old dwarf into talking to her if she has to, easy. Fuck it, if it means a distraction drops into her lap, she can hang the fucking sun above their heads right here, in the shit and the dust and the muck.

Right. So. She should probably start off slow, start off gentle. Small talk, or something. Be tactful. Careful.

“So. Your wife left you for a bunch of darkspawn, huh?”

Up ahead, Alistair snorts, and the sound echoes back three-fold off the walls until it fills her with warmth and she finds herself grinning at his armoured back.

Oghren, narrow-eyed and scowling, doesn’t have the same appreciation for her conversational skills. Which is his loss, honestly. “No.”

“Really?” She throws a look over her shoulder, raises a brow at Zevran, whose mouth is twitching. “Because it sort of sounds like your wife left you for a bunch of darkspawn.”

“You can hardly blame her, warden.” Zevran cuts in. “Between such a fine gentleman as this and a darkspawn, who would you choose?”

“Well, the darkspawn, obviously.”

“Sod off,” Oghren growls, glaring up at her. The effect is somewhat diminished by the fact that he’s several feet shorter than her, and swaying slightly with drink.

She snorts. “Not going to happen, mate.”

“Believe me,” Alistair calls back, voice still hushed, “we’ve tried.”

“Oi!”

They all wince and go very still as her offence echoes off the surrounding stone, a tumbling refrain that trips over itself until Cedany’s ears are filled with naught but her own voice. Which, you know, is usually a sound she’s quite fond of. With her heart caught in her throat and an army of darkspawn lurking in the shadows around her, though… maybe a bit less so.

Zevran nudges her with an elbow as the cramped cavern fills with their quiet footfalls again, falling into step beside her. “Perhaps you should try keeping quiet, Cedany. However hard it might be for you.” His eyes are glittering with innuendo, and the grin on her face widens, brows hitching high on her forehead with the beginnings of something probably filthy.

“What can I say? I’m a screamer. I like blessing you all with my voice.”

Max huffs in a way that’s _almost_ disapproving at that, and she chuckles, scratching him behind the ears.

“Not a fuckin’ blessing,” Oghren grouses from beside her. Her eye roll _hurts._

“You wouldn’t know a blessing if it hit you in the face.” She pauses, considers. “It still might, y’know, so watch it.”

He snarls, bites out something under his breath, and shoves Max out of the way to march on ahead of them all. She half-hopes he gets eaten by another spider for it, honestly. Pushing her dog like that is _rude._

He doesn’t, of course. She just has that kind of luck, you know?

Anyway, he doesn’t get any better, no matter how hard she tries to coax him out. Bloody dwarf. He refuses to speak except to complain or belch, which is _wonderful,_ and then he develops a habit of disappearing whenever it’s not his turn on watch, so she’s had to rely largely on Max, Zevran and Alistair to keep her spirits buoyed. Which is saying something, really, because usually it’s the other way around.

She’s very good at cheering people, see. Bothering them, too. All in a day’s work for Cedany Amell.

That’s— she’s losing the point. She’s losing the bloody _plot,_ quite frankly, but that’s neither here nor there.

They’re about two days out from the Aeducan Thaig and they have _weeks_ of underground travel ahead of them, but she’s already sick of it. None of the others seem to _like_ the Deep Roads, but they’re amiable enough, and the ease with which they move baffles her. How can they not feel the stone pressing down on their heads with every step? How does the still, dead air not make their skin itch? How can they _breathe_ like this? With every inch that she moves, she feels the sky falling further and further away from her; some deep, primal part of her, the part nursed at the Chantry’s teat and starved for sunlight, worries that if she walks far enough she’ll never see the clouds again.

Funny, really. She treks all the way across Ferelden _twice_ in an effort to get away from that fucking tower, and by the end she finds herself back inside unbreachable walls and under unforgiving stone anyway. What a fucking _joke._

Max is the only one who really seems to feel the wear of it the way she does, which, given that he’s a _dog,_ doesn’t do much to reaffirm her sense of sanity, but hey ho. Could be worse. At least this way, she has a constant canine companion to keep her head on straight, someone to nudge her with a wet nose if she strays off her path a bit.

They make camp the next night in a hollow in the wall, and that _should_ make her feel safe, because unless they look _very hard,_ no little critters or darkspawn are going to stumble across them, but— but having the walls brushing her limbs like that makes her want to rip her skin off. Tear out her bones, unstring her teeth. Her eyes are too dry, still and stiff as stone. There is an ache in her ribs that she doesn’t quite know how to name, but that lingers all the same; peels her open like a peach and holds her there.

And that’s not even accounting for the _cold._ She’d forgotten just how sharp stone could feel; in the winters at Kinloch, she used to climb into bed with Eirene for warmth, or one of the others if she was looking for something more— well, heated. That’s not exactly an option here, though; she’d rather freeze to death than snuggle with Oghren, let alone _shag_ him, and somehow she thinks Zevran would make a cuddle out to be a great deal more than it was. Not that— she shouldn’t mind that. She wouldn’t, usually. She doesn’t.

Anyway, it’s not that she wants to be _cuddled_. She just… it’s cold. She’s cold. Whatever.

But anyway. With them struck from the list, her only real option is Alistair, and something about the thought of that – of him, close and warm, that wide frame braced against hers, maybe even those strong, shield-bearing arms wound around her waist, _would he tuck his head into my neck or my hair?_ – makes her shiver. From the cold, of course. Because, again, it’s _fucking freezing,_ and she’s only human, whatever divine traits she possesses that might attest to the contrary.

Alistair draws the short straw and winds up taking first watch, which leaves the rest of them curling up against the wall to try and steal as much sleep as they can.

Which, for Cedany, is looking as though it’ll be none at all.

Zevran and Oghren snarl and snipe at each other over a particular spot with the kind of ferocity only hunger, exhaustion, and general hatred for the environment can imbue in a person, before Oghren throws up his hands with a growl and settles himself in the opposite corner. Leaving Cedany herself wedged between them, of course, which is… well, a less than enviable position. Perhaps if she covers her nose she’ll be able to sleep. Or cuts it off.

Would that work? Probably not.

Worth a try, though.

She settles herself on the hard ground still debating the merits of removing certain body parts for her own sanity, before Max curls in against her with a low huff that tickles her knuckles and apparently appoints himself warmth-provider for the night. Which she can hardly complain about, really; even if he stinks a bit, it’s far better than Oghren’s odd combination of dirt, ale, vomit, and body odour, so hey. With a hum, she settles herself half-under him and throws her thin blanket over both their heads, as though that might manage to block out the rearing ceiling above her.

It’s an odd feeling, really; it reminds her of being ten, eleven, twelve, and hiding under the blankets with one of the others, giggling and whispering in the dead of night.

Scowling at the underside of the blanket, she shuffles herself to pillow her head on Max’s warm, furry shoulder. Because really, she’s being unforgivably melancholic, and this is _ridiculous._

_Think about something else, Cedany, for the love of the fucking Maker._

Something else. Right. Well. The ground is digging into her fucking arse like nothing else, Maker’s _mercy._ Even through her bedroll, she can feel the press of her hipbone against stone as she might a blade against her throat, a dull sort of pain building deep in the marrow like rot. Absently, she counts the bruises ringing her ribs, lining her shoulders, wound around her arms like bracelets; she doesn’t even need to look for them anymore, really, she’s so used to the feel of them under her skin. Swollen and sore, just an inch removed from a raw wound, an ache rather than a burn. Really, she hadn’t expected the Deep Roads to be _comfortable,_ or they’d have a much nicer name – the Good Roads? The Roads of Featherdown Beds? The Roads to Riches, Glory, and Joy? – and a hell of a lot more visitors, but for _fuck’s sake._ When are they going to visit somewhere _nice_ for once?

She huffs, burrows further into Max, and tries to pretend she’s in a proper bed. Maybe back at the Gnawed Noble, in one of those wide mattresses she’d half-bankrupted them for last time they were in Denerim. The others had been so _angry_ when she’d come back with a considerably lighter coin purse and an even _lighter_ step, telling them she’d booked the best rooms for the night, but that had melted away once they’d all settled in. Even Sten had seemed to relax a bit with a proper bed waiting for him, in as much as Sten _can_ relax.

Maker, she misses beds. One of those right now— yeah, that’d be nice.

She won’t remember falling asleep. She won’t remember dreaming, either, which tastes like a blessing even as panic pools in her belly, thick and coppery and crimson. What she _will_ remember is this: the horror howling inside her, the hell lingering in the back of her throat like bile, and the heartache held between her ribs by a stone.

One day, they’ll say of Cedany Amell: she was a haunted house. She kept ghosts in the walls of her bones. Her heart was an open room, and in its depths stood the graves of thousands.

But today, at least, they’ll say nothing of her. Today, she’ll be woken by this:

“Ced?”

She’s upright before she’s even fully aware of it, but before she can so much as begin to get her bearings, her skull smacks into something _hard,_ and she falls like a pane of glass; all in pieces, her awareness darting this way and that like shards disappearing into every nook and cranny they can find. For a long, scrambling moment, she’s all elbows and knees and— ouch, that’s her jaw slamming against the floor, _fuck,_ are the ceilings really _that fucking low here?_

“ _Maker,_ Cedany, ow!”

Ah. Not a ceiling. Right.

She scowls at Alistair through streaming eyes, clutching her head where it’d collided with his and swearing. “For fuck’s _sake,_ Alistair, don’t you know better than to watch a girl sleep?”

He huffs, massaging circles into his jaw with a glare that might cow a darkspawn, but is about as effective as a kitten’s on her. “I wasn’t _watching you sleep,_ why would I _do_ that?”

“Then what _were_ you doing?” she hisses back, blinking through the lingering pain at her crown to sit up and taking care not to disturb the sleeping mabari at her side.

“I was—” He flounders, a hand gesturing at her jerkily. “I was _checking on you,_ if you must know.”

“That _sounds_ like watching me sleep.” She huffs. “I _get_ that I’m gorgeous, Alistair, but seriously, that’s overstepping some fucking—”

“I _wasn’t._ ” His cheeks are flushed. She can’t quite decide if this means he _absolutely was,_ or if he’s just embarrassed, but either way it’s a good look for him.

Not that she’s noticing. Or anything.

“My watch is up,” he carries on, “and I came to wake you, but you were—” His mouth moves wordlessly for a solid minute, before he shakes his head. “Never-mind.”

She frowns. “I was what?”

“Nothing.” He’s looking at her like she’s a spooked animal, or something; like he has to step carefully around her, lest she snap and maul him. Which, honestly? Rude. That’s _rude,_ and she _fully and absolutely_ takes offence, what the fuck.

“ _What?_ ” This is said quite a bit louder than she’d meant it to be, and she darts a wary look Zevran’s way, but he’s still sleeping soundly on his stomach, back rising and falling steadily with every breath. In some part of herself that is not quite so deeply buried as she might like to think, she burns with envy.

She doesn’t need to check on Oghren. Dwarf could probably sleep through a dragon attack, if he tried.

Alistair sighs, and she has to grit her teeth to look at him again. “You were, you know,” he gestures to her face again, “crying in your sleep. I just— I wanted to make sure you were alright, alright?”

“What? No, I wasn’t.” She laughs, as though her face isn’t wet. Because, alright, yeah, maybe now that she’s not distracted by the _mountain_ of a bruise forming on her scalp, her face is _definitely wet._ But that’s neither here nor there, not really, not when you tilt your head and squint about it.

Alistair clears his throat. “Right. No. ‘Course you weren’t. I was— _seeing things._ ”

“Yeah, you were. It’s the _Deep Roads,_ it’s not like it’s unlikely.”

“Right. Fine.” He softens. “You alright, though?”

“Me?” A blink, brows rising, something ragged and raw and _new_ pressing against her stomach. “Yeah. I’m fine. I always am, yeah?” She grins, then, roguish and ravishing, that way she perfected when she was fourteen, that way that always, _always_ works.

Except on Alistair, it seems, whose brow creases just slightly. The light here is limited, because that sort of thing draws in more darkspawn than it does moths – which is _saying something_ – and it’s not worth the risk, but she thinks she sees something very tender touch the lines around his eyes. “Yeah,” he repeats, though the set to his jaw says something very different.

A slow inhale sets her to rights again. Not that she was— you know. Not right. Or upset, or— or whatever. “Right. S’my watch, yeah? Move your arse, mate.”

He looks at her for a very long moment, so long that something tight and sharp and terrible, like a knotted garrotte, shifts in her sternum, before nodding and flashing her a grin. “Yes, ma’am.”

Only he doesn’t move the way that he should be moving, the way she’d expected him to move. He shuffles out of her way – a surprisingly impressive task, given how tight the space is – but as soon as she’s clambered to her feet and grabbed her staff, twirled it once, twice, with the air of someone truly remarkable, he’s following her out into the mouth of their hideaway and settling down beside her.

She turns her face to surreptitiously swipe the tears from her cheeks, a hot kind of shame rearing up her oesophagus so harshly it makes her choke, something like Orzammar’s searing magma knotting in her throat. Clearing it is a trial and a half, one that leaves a sour sort of taste in her mouth, so when she speaks— well, maybe her voice is a bit hoarse. “Go to sleep, you knob.”

“M’not tired.” Alistair retorts, stretching out all his limbs with several dull _clicks._

It’s brighter out here, so when she looks back at him, she can see the bloodshot fingers threaded through the whites of his eyes, the way he wilts against the wall just a bit, like a weed. Her brow cocks, and she’s poking his cheek with a finger before she even fully realises it. “That’s _bullshit._ ‘I’m not tired’, he says. Idiot.”

“Oi, stop insulting me.”

“Then _go to sleep._ ”

He sticks out his tongue. “Don’t tell me what to do.”

The snort that bursts out of her then startles her, warms her. “How old are you, five?”

“Maybe I am, yeah.” He sticks his nose in the air primly, all at once the little prince he keeps saying he isn’t. “Bringing a child into the Deep Roads, Ced, honestly. What were you thinking?”

“I was _thinking_ that Morrigan’d kill you in your sleep if I left you with her, but you’re welcome to go back if you—”

“No, nope, no thank you!” He points a finger in her face, and for a moment she is overcome with the bizarre, childish urge to bite it. “I’m good here.”

It’s as she’s looking at him, brow raised, lips quirked, that she realises: _oh, we really are sat quite close, aren’t we?_ The light of the Roads is dim, but at this distance she can see the gleam of his eyes, the sheen of sweat on his skin, the light dusting of stubble across his jaw. He really is quite nice-looking, when it comes down to it. And not even just, like… in a certain light. He just _is_.

The flirt in her, the man-eating creature of the Tower, with her sharp teeth and thick hide, would very much like to scoot closer, to learn whether he’s quite so warm as he looks, whether he would sigh under her like all the others, whether she’d still taste their meagre dinner of cave beetles and deep mushrooms in the corners of his mouth. Which truly, really, _definitely_ should not sound so appealing to her as it does, and the shudder crawling down her spine should be far less pleasant in light of that. Really.

The flirt in her, in this one instance and this one instance alone, is an _arsehole,_ so she very determinedly _doesn’t do any of those things._ In fact, she does quite the opposite, shuffling a few inches away even as the loss of his heat cries in her, settling the back of her head against the wall so she can’t drop it into his shoulder.

Without the press of him against her, without the low rumble of his voice in her ear, it’s far harder to forget the stone walls pressing in on her body from all sides. Harder to forget the whisper of _wrong, wrong, shouldn’t be here, wrong,_ in the back of her head. Harder to forget the ghosts of mailed fists on her brow, her belly, her neck. Distantly, she remembers the thick fear she’d woken with, how even her sleep had smelled of burning.

She huffs, rolling her shoulders as though to shrug off the memory, or the dream, or the terrible place in-between where they became the same thing. After a moment of staring without sight at the scuffs on her shoes, the frayed hem of her trousers, Alistair nudges her foot with his own, gentle as a fawn.

She blinks up at him, puzzled, but he’s grinning when he says, “you know, they say Harrowmont’s famous in Orlais for being a very beardy courtesan.”

Her lips twitch, sternum softening. “Oh?”

“Oh, yeah. Most high-paid one Val Royeaux has ever seen.”

“And where did you hear this?”

“From a very reputable source back in the Commons, thank you very much.” He sniffs.

“Right. Well, _I_ heard that,” she pauses, squinting, then announces with a grin, “Bhelen’s desperate to get this crown before everyone finds out his mother’s a deepstalker.”

Alistair snorts. “Oh yes? And how does that work, then?”

“Well, when a dwarf and a deepstalker love each other very much—”

“I _know_ how babies are made!” And really, if he’d wanted to protest, maybe he should have considered _not laughing_ as he did it.

Giggling through her nose, she retorts, “ _alright_ , well you asked!”

“Wasn’t what I _meant_.”

“Alright, alright. S’your turn, anyway.”

He makes a thoughtful sound, still rumbling slightly with mirth. “Harrowmont…” His lips purse in thought, and Cedany quite suddenly finds a loose thread in her robes very interesting. “Harrowmont’s secretly a Tevinter magister in disguise. I know,” he adds when she looks up at him with twitching lips and a cocked brow, “he doesn’t look it, but he _is._ ”

She snorts. “Ooh, that explains all the shininess. It’s magic. I’ll have to ask him to teach me it.”

“You don’t need to be any shinier, do you?” He nudges her with an elbow.

“There’s no such thing as too much shininess.” To punctuate, she tugs on the pearl charm about her neck, teeth flashing in her grin.

He eyes the necklace for a surprisingly long time, lips ticking upwards, before nodding. “You sure about that?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“One of these days I’m going to look over, and you’re just going to be covered in jewels. I’m not even going to be able to see you. You’ll be like a glittery Shale.”

She hums, stretching out against the wall almost lazily and revelling in the relief that knocks down her spine, one vertebrae at a time. “You know, that doesn’t sound half bad. I’d make a pretty good golem – I think Shale would agree.”

“ _You_ think Shale would agree with you on everything.”

“It _would._ ”

“ _Riiiiight._ Of course. Absolutely. It didn’t disagree with you just last week, _no._ ”

She sticks out her tongue. “Fuck off.”

“ _You_ fuck off.” He points a finger in her face again, grinning when she shoves it away with a snort. “Anyway, you’d hate being a golem.”

“Why?”

“No sleep, no hair, no _food—”_ He pokes her side with a grin. “No fancy shoes for you and Leliana to coo over, either.”

“Oi, I _do_ talk about more than that.”

He cocks a brow, and she scowls, wrinkling her nose at him – trying not to notice how his cheeks dimple when his smile spreads.

“Alright, fine, I’d hate it. But I’d be _brilliant_ at it.”

“Never said you wouldn’t. It’s your turn, anyway.”

“Fine, fine. Right, well… Bhelen moonlights as a dancer back in Denerim. They call him the Delicious Dwarf.” She says this with the air of a person who is both very old and very wise, even as she waggles her eyebrows like a child. It’s a fine balance of expressions that she’s quite proud of, in truth.

“The—” He repeats, then breaks out with a cackle. “The _Delicious Dwarf?_ ”

“Yep.” She grins up at him, unrepentant, with her tongue caught between her teeth like an imp and her brows arched high.

“Maker, what I’d give to see that.”

“Oh, that’s what you’re into, then?”

He sputters. “What? No, I’m not— shut up!”

She crows with laughter, her muscles loosening, the notches in her spine unhinging _just_ slightly. “You sound so defensive about it, though.”

He sticks out his tongue at her. “Alright, alright, you’ve had your fun.”

The sigh she heaves echoes. “Ugh. Fun. I remember that.”

Alistair hums, casting a thoughtful look around them at the long, stone corridor. “I know what you mean,” he murmurs eventually, and the wall behind them _thumps_ dully as he drops his head against it. “As soon as I get out of here, I’m going to _kiss_ the ground.”

She laughs. “Yeah?”

“Mm-hmm. Full face of dirt, right here.” He pokes his chin with a finger, but the effect is disturbed somewhat by the growing grin that blossoms above it, many-petaled and shining. “I’ll take a page out of Max’s book. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it a great deal.”

“Right, well that sounds—”

Something screams in the distance. Under her skin, she gleams like a naked blade; all sharp and finely-honed, something lethal waiting in the thin spaces between her joints. Exhaustion sits in her still, darkly-shrouded and bestial, fingers still bloodied from clawing at its own eyes, and the thought of a battle welling up within these walls has her aching.

She just wants to _sleep._

She just wants to stop _dreaming._

Alistair’s knee knocks against hers, and she almost leaps out of her skin. When she turns to look, he has a hand on Max’s head, and the mabari is stood tall at the mouth of their cave, sleepy but strong, his body built for a reckoning.

But nothing comes. No darkspawn, no deepstalkers, no ghouls or skeletons or spiders. A ghost skitters along Cedany’s spine, but nothing tumbles out of the shadows, nor tears itself through her gut.

She heaves a sigh that she feels down to her bones. “I hate this fucking place.”

Max whines, padding around Alistair to settle at her feet. His head is heavy on her knee, and something about the solid weight of him, the realness of his warm breath against her leg, how he stinks like wet dog and dirt and old death, settles her.

“Me too,” Alistair sighs, skimming his hand over Max’s snout.

“No, like. I _really_ hate this fucking place.”

His gaze settles on the side of her face, heavy and hard, coaxing an itch from her flesh as surely as rashvine. His knee nudges hers again, but when she turns to look at him he’s studying Max’s face, tracing the mabari’s nose with long fingers. “Do you— I mean. Are you sure you're, you know, alright?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Just—” A shrug unfurls across her shoulders, bringing a short sigh in its wake. “I miss the outside, s’all.”

After a moment of silence that Cedany feels pressing on her throat, noose-like, Alistair whistles. “Cedany Amell, admitting to having feelings. Call the criers, this _is_ news.”

She snorts. “I _will_ hit you.”

“And I _will_ stop you,” he asserts, pulling a face that reaches down into her chest and drags out a laugh on its way back up.

“You could try.” Then, after a moment: “I dunno. I just hate— all of this. Reminds me of Kinloch.”

Alistair pauses, fingertips stilling on Max’s snout. Then, slowly, he levels his elbow with hers, pressing his broad shoulder to her own. She feels the bite of his armour through her robes more than she does his skin, but like Max’s weight, she finds it soothes something inside her. Something flayed and raw, festering with disease. “I’m sorry,” he murmurs, and he sounds it. “But hey. Could be worse. At least there’s me.” He nudges her. “Don’t have many of me in the Tower.”

She snorts. “Almost did.”

His brow furrows, but he allows a reluctant nod. “but not quite, thank the Maker.”

“Mm. I’d’ve eaten you alive.” Her teeth flash. Anyone who’d dare term it a _smile_ is a fool.

“Ha. You’d have _tried._ ”

Her lips twitch, but there’s something hollow opening again in her chest, a bloody cavity rife with rot. She exhales, watches Max’s fur move under her fingers. “I just miss the fucking sky, you know? And the grass. The flowers. I even miss the _bugs,_ a bit. At least most of the spiders out there are the size of my _hand,_ not my whole fucking body.”

“Well, apart from you.”

“Yeah, apart from me. And I’m a _majestic_ spider, so I don’t count.”

He chuckles. “You know, I’m not sure that’s how I’d phrase it. _Disgusting_ and _creepy_ are words that more come to mind.”

She pulls a face. “I’m _beautiful._ ”

There’s a heavy, _heavy_ pause then, one that she feels down to her bones, her blood. She doesn’t know why, but something almost seems to tremble inside her, like it’s waiting.

It doesn’t wait long.

“Yeah,” he acknowledges after a moment, voice soft. “You are.”

And, right, that’s… that’s very much not supposed to _do things_ to her. That’s very much not supposed to be a big deal. She’s— she _is_ beautiful, it’s just a fact, and he’s just _stating_ that fact. Nothing else. _Maker, Amell, pull your shit together._

Silence falls between them for several long moments. Max has begun to doze, ears drooping against his skull, and she traces the lines of his face with a light, almost dainty finger. Alistair peels away from her slowly, almost reluctantly, and the loss of his warmth is a thorn under the skin, another ache to add to a growing list of pains. He shuffles and squirms, fiddling with something beyond her eyeline, and she exhales for five, six, seven seconds, until her lungs ache and her breath dies in her mouth.

Then Alistair shifts. “Well, I can, uh— I can take care of one of your problems, at least.”

“Hm?”

His body is a map of stiff lines and harsh shadows, the plates of his armour carefully aligned by a suddenly-straight posture she attributes more to being the bastard son of a king than any templar training. After a moment, he settles back against the wall, clears his throat, and holds out his hand.

His hand, which has somehow gotten hold of a rose.

She blinks. “What’s that?”

“It’s a weapon. My new sword, see? Watch as I thrash our enemies with the mighty flower of _floral arrangements!_ ” His tone is teasing, but when she looks up at him, his face is flushed.

Her lips twitch. “How terrifying. I bet the darkspawn are quaking in their boots.”

“I thought so.” He sniffs and offers her a grin that’s just a shade sheepish, looking up at her through his lashes. In the low light, his eyes are like chips of amber; she thinks distantly of what little she remembers of her mother, of the jewels Revka Amell favoured in silver inlay about her throat, her wrists, her ears. She _aches._

“Or,” Alistair clears his throat, and she pushes away all thought with every ounce of violence in her, “you know, I suppose it _could_ just be a rose. I know that’s pretty dull by comparison, but—” A shrug. In a jerky, abortive movement, he offers her the bloom, gaze fixed very deliberately elsewhere. “Anyway. You said you missed flowers, so.”

Maybe, possibly, her fingers are a bit shaky when she takes it from him. Shut up.

“It’s gorgeous.” And it is. A little dry and delicate to the touch, maybe, its colour seeping into chestnut at the edges as though rimmed by rust or very old blood, but the very centre of its petals is surprisingly vibrant, almost soft under her fingers.

He grins; in the dark, she thinks maybe his cheeks brighten. “I am a bit, aren’t I?”

 _Yes._ “Eh, you’re alright.”

And really, the way he rolls his eyes shouldn’t have her chest softening like it does. Like, seriously. It’s ridiculous. She’s ridiculous. _He’s_ ridiculous.

“Well, anyway,” he says, “I picked it back in Lothering. I remember thinking ‘how could something so beautiful exist in a place with so much despair and ugliness?’ And I probably should have left it alone, but I couldn’t. The darkspawn would come and their taint would just— destroy it. So, I— well, I’ve had it ever since.”

Her throat is oddly tight. Maker, he’s just… why is he allowed to be so fucking sincere? What the fuck. What the _fuck?_

“That’s…” She clears her throat, turning the flower carefully in her fingers. “You’ve been— carrying this around with you all these months?”

“Uh. Yes. Sounds stupid when you say it like that, really—”

“It’s not! I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You? Passing up an opportunity to call me stupid?” His smile is a gentle, tremulous thing. “Who are you and what have you done with Cedany Amell?”

She snorts. “Shut up, you wanker.”

“No, really. Am I going to have to send out a hunting party? I was thinking you looked a bit different today, a bit more charred, and that _my_ Cedany would never let anyone see her like— ouch!”

He rubs the spot she’d slapped with the care a person would usually attribute a mortal wound, and she laughs even as she files away the slant of his mouth as he’d said the words ‘my Cedany’ for later analysis. Lots of it. Probably in varying places, contexts, and times.

She finds her fingers fidgeting with the stem of their own accord. It’d been pruned of its thorns somewhere along the road, or maybe they’d just dried up and dropped off at some point over the months – _months_ – he’s had it. Either way, the off-green skin is smooth when she touches it, and she swipes it slowly through the skin between her fingers once, twice, three times. Then she gives it back.

Or, well. She tries to.

But then his hand, hesitant and twice the size of her own, closes around her fingers and, oh, she can feel his gauntlets scratching the back of her hand, knocking _one, two, three_ against the fine bones there, and— and a part of her – tiny, distant, very far away because he is _holding her fucking hand_ – wonders if it’ll leave a mark.

The much larger part of her, of course, is throwing itself up her windpipe, tearing its way through her sternum, knocking together her fucking knees, because _Andraste’s_ tits _,_ _why is he holding her hand?_

“I, uh—” He clears his throat, and she doesn’t need to look to know he’s flustered. Which is a good thing, really, because she’s not sure she _can_ look at him, and that’s _ridiculous,_ because since when is someone _holding her fucking hand_ enough to undo her? “I was hoping to give it to you, actually.”

“Me?” she squeaks. _Squeaks._ Like a fucking _mouse._

Somewhere far away, a distance untraversable by time and circumstance and _bullshit_ , Jowan’s belly drops and something cold slithers down his spine. He’ll never know why.

“Well, yes.” He seems to struggle for one very long moment, meeting her eyes and then looking away like she’s burned him, his throat moving silently for a very long moment. “It’s just— well, in a lot of ways, I think the same thing when I look at you.”

When she doesn’t say anything, struck silent for perhaps the first time in her entire life, he adds, “the uh… Ha. The beautiful part, that is.”

And— and that shouldn’t fucking _stop her heart_ like that. She _is_ beautiful. People have been telling her that her whole life, in gentle words and lingering looks and pleasure-panting whispers. She remembers the way that the other apprentices used to act around her, the way that some of the _templars_ used to act around her, and that was— that was worse than this. So why is _this_ the thing to make her whole body lurch like she’s been struck in the head?

“I— um. Thank you.”

_Very eloquent, Cedany, well fucking done._

“I mean— ahem.” She shuffles on her backside a bit, trying to ignore the slow smile unfurling on Alistair’s lips, the fact that she would very much like to learn how it tastes. “That’s sweet. So. Yeah.”

They’re sat so close together that when he laughs, she feels it flutter the hairs by her ear. And when did they shuffle closer again? How did she not notice?

“Have I _actually_ struck the great Cedany Amell speechless?”

“Oh, shut up, you knob. My wit takes a minute, sometimes. Give me a mo.”

He’s smiling like the first break of dawn over Lake Calenhad. Like that first morning outside the tower. And she’s not a romantic, Cedany, but _shit—_ shit, if that doesn’t just stop her heart right in her chest.

He seems to realise that he’s still holding her hand at the exact moment that she does. This close, she can see the flush spread up to his ears and down his neck. She wonders, idly, if it goes any lower.

“I—well, I mean, it seems a bit silly now. I just thought it might help. To have something from up there, down here. _Annnnnd…_ ” He clears his throat. His fingers squeeze hers, just slightly, just enough to send a thrill up through her sternum. “To tell you what a rare and wonderful thing you are to find amidst all this darkness.”

She clears her throat. Her cheeks are burning; she hasn’t blushed since she was four years old. This is _so fucking stupid._

“Well. That was certainly very… pretty. You been practicing?”

“Shut up.” Oh, he _has._ It’s impossible to cage her laugh, then; it leaps out from behind her teeth, the kind of golden and great thing that doesn’t belong down here. Her smile hurts her cheeks, just a bit.

“I _never_ shut up, Alistair, remember?”

And then, just because she can, she squeezes his hand.

“Yeah, yeah, keep laughing at me. You still like it.” He hesitates. “Right?”

“ _Right_. Idiot.”

“Oi!”

**Author's Note:**

> me lookin at this beautiful late blooming slow burn love story and knowing im gonna break it in 50 different ways: [chef kiss] ahhh, perfect
> 
> also zevran was awake for the whole thing and when they go back to orzammar he and leliana gossip abt it like old biddies


End file.
